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Uptown ed summit focuses on equity

“We want to make sure that we meet theirneeds,” said Congressman Adriano Espaillat.

The Chancellor is championing an “enlightened approach” on language learning.

During a recent visit uptown, New York City Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza focused on English Language Learner (ELL) students.

“English Language Learners are not something to be fixed,” said Carranza. “They have an asset that we need to continue to develop while we add a second language which happens to be English. Our attitude is, they already speak another language, let’s add English and make them bilingual – that’s the enlightened approach.”

“What we need is equity,” he added. “We need to invest the resources and support needed for every child to reach a high bar of excellence.”

New York City School District 6 has large numbers of students living below the poverty level, yet no failing public schools, noted the district’s Superintendent Manuel Ramírez at a June 11th education forum featuring Carranza as a special guest.

District 6 has a high number of EnglishLanguage Learner (ELL).

The 2018 Education Summit was hosted at the George Washington Education Campus by Congressman Adriano Espaillat in collaboration with Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer and the non-profit organization Catholic Charities of New York.

Ramírez said the district currently serves 17,706 students, 87 percent of them Hispanic.

More than 14,000 of them are living below the poverty level, he stated, and more than 3,000 students live in temporary housing.

“Yet, we have no failing schools,” Ramírez said. “According to the state, every school is showing enough progress to at least be in good standing.”

Espaillat said the meeting was intended to engage principals, educators and advocates to discuss issues concerning the district.

He said the district needs to ensure that its high number of English Language Learner (ELL) students are supported.

“They seem to be the neediest students in terms of academic achievement,” he said. “We want to make sure that we meet their needs.”

Espaillat has sponsored Congressional legislation that would provide funding to prepare teaching candidates to instruct English Language Learners.

Carranza immediately focused in on the needs of non-English speaking students in the district. After taking the podium, he began addressing Espaillat for a few moments in Spanish.

The Chancellor then remarked that audience members who only understood English probably felt the same way that ELL students feel.

“Because you happen to not speak Spanish, you just missed an entire conversation,” Carranza said.
“Welcome to what it feels like to be in a classroom where you don’t understand the language of instruction,” he stated.

The summit was held at the George WashingtonEducation Campus.

Carranza said that language acquisition has become politicized, and suggested that the rhetoric coming from the Trump administration “stigmatizes” students.

He said there are no worthwhile education policies currently emanating from Washington. “There’s nothing coming out that I want to hook my train to,” he said, stressing that New York City has an opportunity to be a model due to its diversity, and a willingness to educate the whole child, not just “test-taking robots.”

Carranza also praised the city’s efforts to roll out Universal Pre-K to help close the achievement gap, as well as 3K, which he said does not receive state funding.

“So I give immense credit to the city of New York for having the vision to say that’s important, [and] we’re going to invest,” he said.

“There is no space for charter schools in our community,” said CEC District 6 President Johanna García.

City Councilmember Ydanis Rodríguez said the Department of Education and current elected officials must do more to address school diversity, remarking that the city “has the most segregated educational system in the whole nation.”

“It has to stop. It should stop in our time,” he said. “That should be the big takeaway.”

Ramírez advocated for more community schools in the district, and said there was an insufficient number of summer programs at schools, largely due to cost.

“Buildings are closed because we have to pay for them, and we don’t have the money to pay for them,” he said.

While many school districts have seen a rise in charter schools, Community Education Council (CEC) District 6 President Johanna García emphatically stated that she did not embrace them in District 6.

“Until you ease overcrowding in every single one of our schools, until you fund our schools at 100 percent, there is no space for charter schools in our community,” she said.

To ensure that emotional needs of students are being met, Brewer called for the city to fund dedicated onsite social workers at all schools.

“Every single school should have a full-time social worker. Not part-time, not just a guidance counselor,” said Brewer, who also said the city needs to fund more science and arts programs in public schools.

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